The Art of Progress

Short Story

It does not seem right to me that we should proceed as we have so far. After all, I feel as though we are strangers to one another. Although I cannot tell you my name, I can give you some of my history. 

As you might have already heard, I am not one of the original inhabitants of Progress. I came here from the World of Before. For obvious reasons, I do not know how long I have resided in this city, nor I think it is possible to ever know the duration of my stay. Much of my previous life is a dim collection of fragments and snippets in my mind. 

I was a writer of some sort though I cannot remember the genre anymore. I fancy myself that I might have been a novelist. The notion of writing fiction has always stuck with me. I confess, something in me still yearns for a story. Truly, any story would be welcome now.

Sometimes I try my hand at writing again in Progress. It is never good enough. I always look back in shame of what I have created, and I cast it away. It is true when they say that a writer puts his soul into his work. I have found that you can separate the man from his art, but you can never separate the art from the man. I don’t know what that says about me. I try not think about it. 

But enough of my despondency! Melancholy is to be despised in Progress. After all, we’re all heading for a better future. 

As I have already recounted in my previous letter, Progress is a vigorous city filled with activity. While I have outlined many of our pursuits, do not think we mindlessly slave away at these tasks alone. Progress has many leisures to enjoy. 

However, we again come at an obstacle. Most of the pastimes are inherently untranslatable for the conventional mind. I could go on about the geometric intricacies of light refracting across a prism, but such an endeavor would be useless to us both. Indeed, we don’t have many artistic equivalents to the World of Before. 

Most mediums have passed away long ago. What use is a movie or television when you no longer have human eyes or ears? Even something as simple as braille is useless to us who do not have fingers to read. However, despite all our efforts, there is one artistic endeavor that has stood the test of time. 

Or perhaps I have used the wrong words. I mean to say there is one artistic endeavor that we purposefully kept despite our elevated being. I myself have questioned the reason many times, but I have never received a satisfactory answer. Of course, some have put forward theories. 

I have heard that the craft is an eternal truth of man although I find this explanation unsatisfactory for there is no eternal truth in Progress. Another theory is that we kept the art as a means of demonstrating our superiority to the past. Again, I find this unsatisfactory as the past no longer exists. 

The only theory to which I give some credit was put forward by a personal friend of mine. He told me that we keep this burden because we cannot bear to part with it. Man without art is dead and Men who are beyond Men even more so. After all, if we give up art, are we truly any better than those who came before us?

I refer of the oldest of expressions. It is a mark that has remained with mankind since the beginning of time. While it has changed somewhat over the years, its essence always remains the same. I speak to you of an image. 

An image is the elements of the world brought to order to create meaning. Whether you look at a cave painting or a portrait of the highest mastery, the basic nature is the same. A picture cannot exist without a man to make it. 

So, this most basic of crafts was granted an exception. I cannot describe to you the details, but there are art galleries permitted where one may experience this most sublime art of leisure. They are places where eyes can be grafted to see once more, ears to hear of discussion, and tongues to speak again. 

My friend took me to one such of these places. Unfortunately, for the sake of these letters, I cannot divulge his name for fear of compromising my own. Instead, I shall name him Adonis for he was always an appreciator of this most ancient of rituals. 

The art gallery we visited was a most extraordinary one—perhaps the most prominent of Progress. It does not have a name because nothing does in this city. However, take my word that its reputation was beyond equal. Adonis led me through the entrance, and we excitedly made our way into the exhibit. 

Now, this particular showing was themed around the nature of human development. But before we get to that, I feel that I must again offer a disclaimer. These images I am about to describe to you are not quite images. They are actuality itself. I have spoken to you before that all the Laws are bent to our will. Therefore, we do not need to rely on the paltry combination of colors and shape to direct our intent. 

Every image is alive and real albeit frozen in a moment. They have every nature and dimension that you ascribe to yourself now, but perhaps a little more realistic if you pardon me for saying. We have spared no expense in creating the finest art in all creation—and even somewhat beyond creation too. I hope you enjoy or at least learn from my account. 

We started in the first hall which was dedicated to the most primitive forms of art. We stopped at a piece which depicted the rise of New Rome. I am unexperienced in your history, but if I were to guess at a date, it would’ve taken place sometime around ten thousand and eight hundred years after your dating system. 

We saw Man at his most barbaric, just emerging from the Earth to found the first of cities. I confess, I never saw something so primitive as a spacesuit before in my life. The way it clung to his form made me feel pity for his inelegance. The synthetic fiber barely clothed his filthy, fleshy body as he seemed to beat at his chest like a wild animal craving oxygen. Indeed, this was little more than a wild animal as he foraged for food around stars much like any other beast. 

Adonis stopped me at this piece, and he pointed. “Did you take a look at the forehead? The early cranial development is captured perfectly.”

“I didn’t think to consider it,” I responded. “I was looking at his posture.”

The man—if he could be called a man—seemed too much hunched over. He prowled, fearful of what might come at him during the night. While I couldn’t help but marvel at the backwardness of such a creature, I did feel a little stirring in me. He was such a primitive animal, and yet he did possess some dignity about him. 

Adonis engaged in some conversation with the art piece while I stood behind and watched carefully. The beast uttered grunts and sounds from his throats as was his language, but I couldn’t help but feel some nobility about the creature. Even the lowest of Men are still Men. While there were eons that separated from us, there was a spark of me in him and him in I. 

I was reminded of another piece of art in the same hall. It was the glove print of a man placing his hand against glass as his spaceship roared in the darkest depths of space. While this was the most beastly of men, he was still trying to make his mark on time. I could not help but feel some connection with the poor creature whose time had passed so long ago that even memory was forgotten. 

I have been told art is what separates Man from beasts. It is the part of Him which screams out toward the universe in hopes of an answer. If there is any beauty to the world, I can think of nothing more poignant. However, we are the Men who have received no answer back—or rather have received satisfactory answer.

There is no real commonality between this brute and myself. He is the creature who yearned for something more without the vision to take it. Adonis pointed out the small cranial structure, and I could not help but see his point. This brute could never dream of Progress, and so he was easily discarded with all the rest that we have left in the past. 

We escaped that hall, filled with depictions of the most primitive design and into the next showing. I confess this was my own personal favorite of the exhibition. Now that Man had ascended from his beastly genesis, we could finally move onto proper civilization. This was the hall of empires—of towering pillars and grandiose monuments. 

This was Man at his splendor. Whatever dignity rested in the primitive stage was elevated and perfected here. The man in the spacesuit was soon forgotten as we saw a man striding forth in garments of white and gold. This new representation was perfectly proportioned, every inch of his body brought to fruition with genetic detail and perhaps some cosmetic sculpting. 

Adonis was attracted by this pleasing frame as I was more drawn to the scenery. I stopped at a painting—which wasn’t really a painting—that depicted an ecumenopolis burgeoning forth. The planet-wide city was crisscrossed with roads that stretched beyond the horizon. Peering in, I could see it to the smallest detail, even to the flying ships coming back and forth. The plaque below the display told me this was from the Fourth Dynasty of Maries on the planet Lorinthia.

And what a wonderful display it was! The planet itself had been sculpted to the utmost precision. I have spoken to you of golden ratios and perfect measurements, but it was even more impressive at such an early epoch. These people crafted an entire planet to the perfect proportion so that they might be the most beautiful in all the universe. The city itself on that planet was perfectly designed as well, an array of geometric pattern which spoke to an order of the smallest detail. 

I studied the image for a long time. Indeed, we think of art as embodied by objective principles. It is by these principles which we seek to bring order to chaos and thus bring forth beauty in the world. Art by these standards is nothing more than the fulfillment of truth, and I daresay that I believed it when I studied these depictions. 

But that is not the truth of Progress. I met back up with Adonis while he was still studying the evolved man. 

“Elegent, isn’t he?” Adonis asked me, his eyes never leaving the display. 

“More elegent than the last one we saw,” I admitted. 

Adonis turned towards me, his eyes yet unsatisfied by the piece. “Still imperfect though. To be bound by dimension or rule is to subject oneself to conventionality. This piece is no more than a slave.”

The artwork begged to differ even while he spoke in the most eloquent of primitive tongues. The man wrapped in white and gold made all sorts of arguments to the contrary—as he well should. Progress has always been a friend to debate as all debates inevitably yield to Progress. However, the fact that he had to debate made his point moot. Did he not feel confident in the self-evident nature of himself? Could he not rest on these works and let them speak for him? If not, then he at some level doubted them. We in Progress believe that all doubts must be examined. 

We moved on. Adonis never seemed hesitant in his decision, but I looked back all the same. If any of my letters are discovered, I think this might be the most dangerous one. For in this letter, I will state everything quite clearly to you. 

Progress has never been afraid to do with the past. You have seen that literally, but I now do so metaphorically. I confess that I hesitate as I write these words, but I must say them, or my heart will condemn me. I wish we remained in that section of the exhibit. I wish we might’ve even stayed in the earlier one too. Anything but what was to come next. 

However, that was not meant to be. We came into a new room decorated with the finest of exhibits Progress had to offer. Finally, we saw Man as he truly was. This was the Man of Progress—at least what he had been in the World of Before.

I cannot describe to you of perfect proportions or even of grandiose displays. We had moved beyond such sentimentality and conventional understanding. This was Man freed from the objective principles of the past and let loose to experience true freedom that he never had the opportunity to discover. 

I tell you as I must, that it was the most magnificent of exhibitions. You see, art had long been constrained by not only mathematical principle but also the subjective morality of its time. We have not seen a progression of technology so much as a stripping away of restriction. Man let loose from the bonds of a sullen Earth and flew into the stars. When eventually even the stars were not beautiful enough for him, he let loose of those as well. 

Finally, we come to the purest expression of art, that of Man free from all objective principle. Adonis said that the elegant man was still a slave, and how right he was! The previous piece was bound in shackles by such things as proportion and beauty. It was the truest expression of a slave. 

We now saw Man completely free from such things, and what a splendor it was! The first foundation of Progress had not yet been set, but it was still so gorgeous. Man had let loose of his shape which constrained him, and so we walked upon all manner of forms on display. 

Some looked like the beasts of Earth, chimeras really, although they were poor imitations of such as they had not yet perfected true freedom. Some Men had deigned to take on forms resembling that geometric precision I have described in a previous letter. Although, I must say they were again imperfect as they were merely but fleshy things and unlike our true perfection. However, the ones that I can recall the best were actually the most human.

You see, once we free art from objective constraints, art becomes self-expression. The artists’ purpose is to rouse a reaction from his onlooker for there is no truth anymore to speak. I now ask you; how does one do that? How does one clamor over the trillions of meandering noise whose voices are but insignificant specks compared to true genius?

I tell you that you must shout the loudest. You must cross beyond where others fear to tread. Every objective constraint must not only be trodden but spat upon. All the subjective moralities of the past must be mocked. Every limitation must be exceeded until there are none left. But that was the artist that came long before you were born. You, however, must therefore go even further and thus so must the artist even after you. 

So, we stopped at an exhibit of a woman—or at least what was once a woman—or at least what was once a man. What we saw was stunning in its display, and I could not remove my eyes from such a creation. Truly, this was something to behold, and yet I don’t think anyone could. The woman—if it might be called as such—had no face. Or rather, it had no face that was distinct from the body. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t tell where it begun or ended. 

Neither could I tell apart the arms or the legs. The torso was somewhere, but I couldn’t find that either. That is not to say that the exhibit was some formless blob. Not at all! It’s just that the aspects of what made a woman were masterfully mixed together into something else. Where I looked for feet I saw eyes, and where I looked for eyes, I saw ears. It’s the funniest thing, when I took a step back, I could’ve sworn I was looking at the hand. 

Adonis stepped forward and he questioned the creature. Yet I was again drawn to the landscape rather than the person. I now realize that may be a personal fault of mine—I always appreciated beauty away from humanity. 

Their cities and empires resembled more closely than ours, reality warping to humanity’s sway. Yet, they still retained an imperfection in their design. Their apartments still resembled apartments and factories still resembled factories. Transcendence had not yet been completely reached.

I must confess yet again that I have guised my words, but I shall risk another grave sin against Progress. I preferred it when apartments were still apartments. I liked it when factories were still factories. I daresay even go so far as to blaspheme that I enjoyed it when people were still people. 

You may be well assured that I will never encounter this weakness again, but I took pleasure when things held distinction. I downright reveled in the moment when things could be held separately and took category. You may ask me why, but you already know the answer. When everything is everything that only means everything is nothing. 

I suspect Adonis knew this on some level. He went on to some fascinating conversation with the woman which held no real meaning or substance. I approached him as he finished his words with the piece. 

“What will you do? Now that you are an exhibit?” He asked without the slightest hint of sympathy towards the artwork. 

“I shall do as I always have done,” a face replied, shifting into a foot. “Entertain.”

For myself, I found that I laughed at that. Forgive me, but I suddenly wondered what I was doing here. This museum could not compete with even the most base pleasures of Progress. I spoke to you before of pleasure—and the Men who desire pleasure above all else—and to me that felt more tempting right now. 

Only the most pretentious or the most savant of individuals would bother with art in Progress. It is nothing more than a curiosity that cannot even compete with the most beastly chemicals of the brain. I felt Adonis coming to a similar sentiment as he engaged in further useless conversation. 

After all this, we realized we were bored! We had left behind the world of art to pursue higher interests, and now we were merely pretending to care. Art in Progress holds no significance or valor; it is only a statement on a world that had long passed. 

Adonis was right when he spat upon the image because even the art critic could no longer bear the absurdity. There was no purpose here—which I must add—was the only thing that could justify such arrogance. 

We left the gallery with the fiercest of insults. Not that we were angry—only if it were so! Our spirits were emptied, and our souls dulled. Our time was wasted by the art, and that is the most damning of claims. For myself, I took off my sandals and shook the dust off my feet before leaving those too at the gallery. There is nothing else that can be said of such work.